The Book
by wsprsndadrk
Summary: Something as simple as a notebook can be so telling when it comes to love and life.


"What's this?"  
  
He angles his head so that he can look at me sideways through the slits of his eyes. I try to keep my face passive and unassuming. If he detects even the slightest bit of mischief, he may not allow me the truth to this little secret I've found in his pack. His eyes are heated, and cage me in a warmth I only find held in their gaze. I smile and hold the precious object to my chest. Slowly, he nods to himself, and a shock of chocolate hair falls into his eyes. I find myself unwilling to resist brushing it from his face, and he leans into my caress. He takes my hand in his, and blows warm air on my palm and gifts me with a lopsided grin.  
"It's a book."  
  
I growl at him, and declare that he is a criminal, and that I am completely capable of knowing a book when I see one. He replies, in his teasing way that seems so direly serious, that if I knew that the object in question was a book, why had I asked?  
  
Instead of answering him, I snort in his general direction, and plop myself on the curb of the sidewalk and cross my legs. I've learned to do this without conscious thought in the narrow streets of Milan. There are many mopeds here, and I've grown fond of my feet and would like to keep them as they are. I turn the book over in my hands, and inspect the detail of the cover. It's aged and cracked though un-torn, and there are drawings and phrases haphazardly written, filling the spaces. I run my fingers along the edges, letting my skin become familiar with something that has obviously traveled and has secreted away the innermost thoughts and impressions of its owner, who is now sitting beside me, who is watching me. I imagine the contents of this book to be a mirror of him - strangely at ease with the world, a cross of pristine and disheveled carelessness jumbled together in a simple and direct way, but hiding away such things.  
  
The crinkly papers within the book have stories of their own; some are yellowed, some stick together, some have folded corners and tears. They are thick, like the weight of the memories they hold makes them so, and the pages turn one by one instead of flipping easily. Pieces of paper not belonging to the book itself stick out from the edges, on which I imagine things written in rushed inspiration, or perhaps scribbled on a napkin while at a café or on a train, all to be added later to the collection between the covers. It's so like him to place these treasures randomly in the book seemingly without care. They can still be found, but in no sensible order.  
  
Just to touch these things is like experiencing what it might be like to be him. To read these things, to glimpse a part of his soul; the things he finds witty or amusing, profound or simple truth, the things that shapes his mind and his feelings, would in turn shape me. I would be changed because I would know what it is like to be him. I would see as he does. I would scrutinize as he does. I would love as he does.  
  
I flip the pages so that I am at the beginning, and touch the ink of the first word on the first line. I expect it to be raised, like its wish is to reach out to me as my fingers caress the bends and scratchy loops that is his handwriting. I only feel the soft page, and the texture of the fibers.  
  
I read the word. "I" Somehow, that single word is perfect, and I smile. It is a representation of you, a crown that has been your name as you speak, it has known your lips and before those lips, the mind inside your head with your wispy hair, tanned brow, and chilly eyes. It knows all you have seen and compels me to reach further. To learn more of what you have known.  
  
I read the next word, and the next, and realize that as I am reading, you open your arm and invite me to lean against you. You know already what is written, so you hold me, put your chin on my head, and feel my impressions through my body. My breathing, my sounds, the way I turn each page. You smell my hair, and I can feel you smile.  
  
It surprises me when I hear the low, soft rumble of your voice, speaking the very words I'm reading softly into my ear. It makes the words on the page leap into a three dimensional world, and the sensation thrills me. Your voice and your words in my head, coming alive like it is I who has given them life. My voice. My words. And you read aloud, and I follow along.  
  
"I am not hard to see  
Anyone who looks at me  
Knows I am just a rolling stone  
Never landed any place   
To call my own  
To call my own  
  
Well it seems like so long ago  
But it really ain't you know  
I started off a crazy kid  
Miracle I made it though  
The things I did  
The things I did  
  
Some day I'll go where  
There ain't no rain or snow  
Till then I'll travel alone  
And I'll make my bed

With the stars above my head  
And dream of a place called home  
I had a chance to settle down  
Get a job and live in town  
Work in some old factory  
I never liked the foreman  
Standing over me  
Over me  
  
No I rather walk a windy road  
Rather know the things I know  
See the world with my own eyes  
No regrets no looking back no good byes  
No good byes  
  
And some day I'll go where there ain't no rain nor snow  
Till then I'll travel alone  
And I make my bed  
With the stars above my head  
And dream of a place called home  
  
Some day I'll go where there ain't no rain nor snow  
Dream of a place called home."  
  
I didn't know you wrote lyrics, but on this page, the words are coupled with the language of music and notes of a song. I saw you looking at a guitar a in the store window a few hours ago. I might just go back and barter for it. I have a jade necklace from my god mother the Italians seem to like. I'll bring it to you; lay it down next to you when you are looking away so that when you see it, it will be lying there as if it had always been lying next to you. Like it's place next to you was it's home. Then I will put out my multicolored hat you think is ridiculous but love because it's mine, and make a few extra Lire. You will sing and play, and I will dance in the streets.  
  
I smile and look up at you to see if you have figured out what I'm thinking, as you have a way of doing. Your eyes are closed. Have you have been reciting to me from memory? Yes, I think so. I blow gently on your face to catch your attention, and kiss your nose after you've opened your eyes to gaze down at me. You grin that lopsided smirk of yours and cock your head towards the book on my lap. Curious, I look at the page. At first, I don't understand, but the arm that held me snakes around my back, then through the space between my side and arm, and you touch a small section of the page I had assumed was random and unrelated to the song, and therefore inspired little attention. Scribbled in the margin in rough, deliberate strokes that appear to have been overwritten several times over time in various colors of ink are the words, "She is my home."  
  
You've always said that tears exist only to live a sudden and short life, whose purpose is to die, and in their death, extinguish the pain that was the reason for the tear. And so my tear is added to your collection of thoughts and words. The stain is a testament to the tear, and a rejection to your theory of a tear's death. This one will live forever outside of pain, right beside the words that caused it to live.


End file.
